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Pentagon: Let's Nuke Russia!

Submitted by gjohnsit on Fri, 01/19/2018 - 12:29pm

Who knew that President Obama, in comparison to The Donald, was a pacifist.

The Pentagon’s new defense strategy calls for aggressive steps to counter Russia and China, directing the military to retrain its attention on great-power competition after nearly two decades of focusing primarily on Islamist militants and "rogue" nations.
The emphasis of the new National Defense Strategy, unveiled Friday by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, contrasts starkly with the last time the Pentagon developed such a blueprint — in 2014, before Russia joined the Syrian civil war and hacked U.S. political organizations.
...“We will continue to prosecute the campaign against terrorists that we’re engaged in today," Mattis said, "but great power competition — not terrorism — is now the primary focus of U.S. national security.”

So what does it mean by "primary focus" and "aggressive steps"?
Here's a hint: Duck and Cover!

The front page of Tuesday’s New York Times contained an alarming headline: “Pentagon Suggests Countering Devastating Cyberattacks With Nuclear Arms.” The article, by David Sanger and William Broad, reported on a leaked draft of the Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, which determines what the role of nuclear weapons should be. This draft departs from previous posture reviews by broadening the range of attacks that could trigger a massive U.S. retaliation, including with nuclear weapons.
Sanger and Broad acknowledge that the draft, which was first published by the Huffington Post, “does not explicitly say that a crippling cyberattack against the United States would be among the extreme circumstances” that would motivate the administration to initiate nuclear war. But, citing former and current officials, Sanger and Broad report that the proposed nuclear doctrine posits this contingency if, in the words of the leaked document, an adversary conducted “non-nuclear strategic attacks … on U.S., allied, or partner civilian population or infrastructure.” In plain English, the Trump team seems to be threatening to nuke anyone who conducts a massively disruptive cyberattack on the power grid or water system of the U.S. or one of its friends.

Well, that sounds reasonable. If someone in Russia shuts off our electricity for a couple hours, then ending all life on Earth is a perfectly reasonable response!
Anyone that says otherwise is a Putin Puppet.

Senate Democrats called on Wednesday for the Trump administration to adopt a set of tougher measures against Russia, although many of their suggestions about improving NATO cyber operations have already been adopted by the alliance.
The senators charged in a 200-page report that the White House lacks a coherent plan to counter Moscow’s efforts at undermining the West.
“Never before has a U.S. president so clearly ignored such a grave and growing threat to U.S. national security,” the report said.

So, nuclear holocaust is simply not tough enough. I'm guessing that means we'll have to build a time machine to go back in history and nuke Russia over and over again.
That'll teach 'em!

Comments

They feel Empire slipping out of their grasp. For them, the world is spinning out of control. In their fever dreams, they imagine that the whole world is coming for a piece of the United States, their Preciousssss, when nothing could be further from the truth. One wonders if this species can survive its defective parts.

To bring that home: It turns out the Democratic Party is the locus of the disease that is killing the American mind. It was the perfect place to hide in plain sight.

They feel Empire slipping out of their grasp. For them, the world is spinning out of control. In their fever dreams, they imagine that the whole world is coming for a piece of the United States, their Preciousssss, when nothing could be further from the truth.

What really is "coming for a piece of the United States" -- all the pieces, in fact -- is the 99% of the people who live in the United States. The neos and their paymasters are really worried about that, so they gin up all these politico-military adventures as a massive diversion to get us Serfs to forget about our real business with these people: to deprive them of all power over us.

They feel Empire slipping out of their grasp. For them, the world is spinning out of control. In their fever dreams, they imagine that the whole world is coming for a piece of the United States, their Preciousssss, when nothing could be further from the truth. One wonders if this species can survive its defective parts.

To bring that home: It turns out the Democratic Party is the locus of the disease that is killing the American mind. It was the perfect place to hide in plain sight.

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12 users have voted.

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"I say enough! If Israel wants to be the only superpower in the Middle East then they can put their own asses on the line and do it themselves. I want to continue to eat."-- snoopydawg

Good point! 'Duck and cover' being a great way to get those pesky non-billionaire-Americans to bend over and stay that way.

Doesn't seem to occur to them that people might be instead triggered to fight against nuclear annihilation of life on the planet (edit: and) for their lives on a global basis... of course, some of the wealthiest apparently believe that they can survive a 'limited' nuclear War Against The World to live happily ever after.

They feel Empire slipping out of their grasp. For them, the world is spinning out of control. In their fever dreams, they imagine that the whole world is coming for a piece of the United States, their Preciousssss, when nothing could be further from the truth.

What really is "coming for a piece of the United States" -- all the pieces, in fact -- is the 99% of the people who live in the United States. The neos and their paymasters are really worried about that, so they gin up all these politico-military adventures as a massive diversion to get us Serfs to forget about our real business with these people: to deprive them of all power over us.

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2 users have voted.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

They feel Empire slipping out of their grasp. For them, the world is spinning out of control. In their fever dreams, they imagine that the whole world is coming for a piece of the United States, their Preciousssss, when nothing could be further from the truth. One wonders if this species can survive its defective parts.

To bring that home: It turns out the Democratic Party is the locus of the disease that is killing the American mind. It was the perfect place to hide in plain sight.

Is it possible there is a whole generation that doesn't know what nuclear weapons actually do? Ducking and covering under one's desk is not going to protect one. Is it possible there is a significant population in the United States that just doesn't have any knowledge of what they're rattling about?

Maybe it's time to have real information made available to the part of our population that doesn't know what they're talking about.

@Linda Wood
if nuclear holocaust is simply not tough enough, then what is?
I'm looking for ideas.

Possibly, 1) kill them all, 2) bring them back from the dead, 3) then kill the zombies.

Or, 1) get to heaven first, 2) ambush them at the pearly gates

this isn't sarcasm or part of a Monty Python screenplay.

Is it possible there is a whole generation that doesn't know what nuclear weapons actually do? Ducking and covering under one's desk is not going to protect one. Is it possible there is a significant population in the United States that just doesn't have any knowledge of what they're rattling about?

Maybe it's time to have real information made available to the part of our population that doesn't know what they're talking about.

@Linda Wood
was forseeable. During the campaign The Hairball repeatedly said he would sprinkle generals throughout his administration, vowed to listen to those generals, praised the murderous psychopaths Patton and MacArthur as his Platonic ideal of generals, groused that there was no point to possessing nuclear weapons unless one was willing to use them, vowed to swell the nation's military and its nuclear stockpile to wildly unsane levels, and promised to order war crimes whenever he felt like it.

It required sticking needles in one's eyes, not to see it.

this isn't sarcasm or part of a Monty Python screenplay.

Is it possible there is a whole generation that doesn't know what nuclear weapons actually do? Ducking and covering under one's desk is not going to protect one. Is it possible there is a significant population in the United States that just doesn't have any knowledge of what they're rattling about?

Maybe it's time to have real information made available to the part of our population that doesn't know what they're talking about.

all of this was forseeable. During the campaign The Hairball repeatedly said he would sprinkle generals throughout his administration, vowed to listen to those generals, praised the murderous psychopaths Patton and MacArthur as his Platonic ideal of generals,

At least one rock-and-roll songwriter foresaw it before The Hairball entered politics:

#2
was forseeable. During the campaign The Hairball repeatedly said he would sprinkle generals throughout his administration, vowed to listen to those generals, praised the murderous psychopaths Patton and MacArthur as his Platonic ideal of generals, groused that there was no point to possessing nuclear weapons unless one was willing to use them, vowed to swell the nation's military and its nuclear stockpile to wildly unsane levels, and promised to order war crimes whenever he felt like it.

It required sticking needles in one's eyes, not to see it.

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6 users have voted.

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"I say enough! If Israel wants to be the only superpower in the Middle East then they can put their own asses on the line and do it themselves. I want to continue to eat."-- snoopydawg

@hecate
And importantly, Trump was always fully on board with the fake war OF terror which has been used to justify the great military buildup (until the official unveiling of the "great power competition", and all the police state fascism we have today.
Obviously a lot of people, particularly those accusing the deep state for why Trump has "changed", didn't want to see it.

#2
was forseeable. During the campaign The Hairball repeatedly said he would sprinkle generals throughout his administration, vowed to listen to those generals, praised the murderous psychopaths Patton and MacArthur as his Platonic ideal of generals, groused that there was no point to possessing nuclear weapons unless one was willing to use them, vowed to swell the nation's military and its nuclear stockpile to wildly unsane levels, and promised to order war crimes whenever he felt like it.

#2.2 And importantly, Trump was always fully on board with the fake war OF terror which has been used to justify the great military buildup (until the official unveiling of the "great power competition", and all the police state fascism we have today.
Obviously a lot of people, particularly those accusing the deep state for why Trump has "changed", didn't want to see it.

@Linda Wood
everyone had to watch a documentary called "Hiroshima and Nagasaki" made by the Japanese, it was nothing but film of the victims of the bombs. They don't show that film any more.

this isn't sarcasm or part of a Monty Python screenplay.

Is it possible there is a whole generation that doesn't know what nuclear weapons actually do? Ducking and covering under one's desk is not going to protect one. Is it possible there is a significant population in the United States that just doesn't have any knowledge of what they're rattling about?

Maybe it's time to have real information made available to the part of our population that doesn't know what they're talking about.

@doh1304
the Japanese didn't make a film of the Rape of Nanking and the evacuation of Manilla for ballance. In Nanking in addition to the murder of between 200,000 and 300,000 unarmed people, Japanese soldiers systematically gang raped 20,000 women and girls. Typically they were murdered after the rapes, often by thrusting bamboo staves through their vaginas into their intestines. It wasn't a quick death.

During the evacuation of Manilla in face of advancing American troops, in addition to murdering thousands of men and raping and murdering thousands of women, Japanese troops added the practice of scooping the eyeballs out of babies and smearing them on walls and buildings.

And the current leader of Japan is on record as insisting that Korean teenagers who were forced to become "comfort women" servicing the sexual needs of Japanese troops eagerly volunteered because of the higher rations they would receive.

Selectively picking out the most violent activities of US forces devoid of context is neither history nor honest.

#2
everyone had to watch a documentary called "Hiroshima and Nagasaki" made by the Japanese, it was nothing but film of the victims of the bombs. They don't show that film any more.

@FuturePassed
Also abso;utely irrelevent. I was not talking about relative atrocities, I was talking about seeing the result of a nuclear blast and how it affected me when I was 10 years old.

#2.3
the Japanese didn't make a film of the Rape of Nanking and the evacuation of Manilla for ballance. In Nanking in addition to the murder of between 200,000 and 300,000 unarmed people, Japanese soldiers systematically gang raped 20,000 women and girls. Typically they were murdered after the rapes, often by thrusting bamboo staves through their vaginas into their intestines. It wasn't a quick death.

During the evacuation of Manilla in face of advancing American troops, in addition to murdering thousands of men and raping and murdering thousands of women, Japanese troops added the practice of scooping the eyeballs out of babies and smearing them on walls and buildings.

And the current leader of Japan is on record as insisting that Korean teenagers who were forced to become "comfort women" servicing the sexual needs of Japanese troops eagerly volunteered because of the higher rations they would receive.

Selectively picking out the most violent activities of US forces devoid of context is neither history nor honest.

Selectively picking out the most violent activities of US forces devoid of context is neither history nor honest.

Are you saying that acknowledging the atrocity of the effects of atomic bombs on civilians in Japan is ignoring the context of outrage against Japanese soldiers?

I'm having trouble expressing what I mean here, so I'm not criticizing you for being unclear, but I feel you are saying that all the flesh melting and suffering applied to Japanese civilians was understandable given the atrocities committed by the Japanese military, similar to the fire storms inflicted on German cities and the civilians incinerated there. The civilians deserved it because their military dictatorship was so inhuman.

This is a key difference of perspective, I think, between pacifists and people who think war is unfortunately necessary. But in the case of atomic weaponry, it's not that someone just got so outraged at "Japan," meaning its military, that they grabbed whatever big bomb was available and flung it at "Japan." No. The atomic bomb was the result of longterm research and development and was an industrial product designed for the incineration of cities, not armies.

#2.3
the Japanese didn't make a film of the Rape of Nanking and the evacuation of Manilla for ballance. In Nanking in addition to the murder of between 200,000 and 300,000 unarmed people, Japanese soldiers systematically gang raped 20,000 women and girls. Typically they were murdered after the rapes, often by thrusting bamboo staves through their vaginas into their intestines. It wasn't a quick death.

During the evacuation of Manilla in face of advancing American troops, in addition to murdering thousands of men and raping and murdering thousands of women, Japanese troops added the practice of scooping the eyeballs out of babies and smearing them on walls and buildings.

And the current leader of Japan is on record as insisting that Korean teenagers who were forced to become "comfort women" servicing the sexual needs of Japanese troops eagerly volunteered because of the higher rations they would receive.

Selectively picking out the most violent activities of US forces devoid of context is neither history nor honest.

...The atomic bomb was the result of longterm research and development and was an industrial product designed for the incineration of cities, not armies.

That is quite possibly the most essential point possible to make. And it's one which should be used everywhere and in every mention of the use of nuclear bombs.

The fact that they are made to be used against civilian targets, rather than military - and that the damage and effectively permanent poisoning cannot be contained to a specific target area, as should be ensured in strikes against military targets - was obvious the instant you said it and should be made central to all such discussion.

Selectively picking out the most violent activities of US forces devoid of context is neither history nor honest.

Are you saying that acknowledging the atrocity of the effects of atomic bombs on civilians in Japan is ignoring the context of outrage against Japanese soldiers?

I'm having trouble expressing what I mean here, so I'm not criticizing you for being unclear, but I feel you are saying that all the flesh melting and suffering applied to Japanese civilians was understandable given the atrocities committed by the Japanese military, similar to the fire storms inflicted on German cities and the civilians incinerated there. The civilians deserved it because their military dictatorship was so inhuman.

This is a key difference of perspective, I think, between pacifists and people who think war is unfortunately necessary. But in the case of atomic weaponry, it's not that someone just got so outraged at "Japan," meaning its military, that they grabbed whatever big bomb was available and flung it at "Japan." No. The atomic bomb was the result of longterm research and development and was an industrial product designed for the incineration of cities, not armies.

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5 users have voted.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

The following illustrates in horrific fashion how societies are pathologized by psychopathic propagandists, as has been so particularly noticeable for so long in the US, due to long-running Nazi/psychopath-type propaganda now being globally imposed.

In America, much of such propaganda has, as we know, also long been used to divide groups of citizens based upon virtually any existing difference, ranging from those of class, skin colour/accents/lineage through (now lessening) gender/sexual preference to designated-as-political viewpoints to the point where many apparently think it 'natural' among humans that others demonstrating various of such differences should be feared/hated.

Someone (can't recall who?) posted fairly recently on here about comments read on other sites where apparent divide-and-conquer propaganda/effects achieved through 'othering' involved comments saying that California liberals - their fellow Americans - should be killed/bombed? for their opinions... this has long been the case with such as seen in pathological internet and other commentary regarding officially 'acceptable/condoned' police abuses and outright murders of 'othered' US citizens happening to have darker skin. This 'kill the liberals' commentary may or may not have been posted by propaganda trolls, as may be much of the rest, but either way, it's a salutary warning and one of many too long overlooked.

Blair Imani
I care about people and I want to change the world • Civic Action & Campaign Lead @dosomething • Founder @equalityforHER • blair@blairimani.com • she/her
Nov 18, 2017
Propaganda, Dehumanization, and World War II

Written June 2015 — The consequences of dehumanization and the emphasis upon nationalist supremacy created a war in which killing was a moral obligation.

...During World War II, propaganda accelerated the construction of racial pride and nationalist identities for the Allied and Axis powers. As populations became emboldened by the assertion of their own superiority they became complicit in the dehumanization of those that fell outside of their constructed identities. As a result of racist propaganda and dehumanization World War II became a war bereft of humanity. John W. Dower’s book, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific, discusses the role of propaganda in the intensification of poisonous myths of racial and national supremacy. Through the indoctrination of those myths whole nations willingly accepted participation in the atrocities against humanity that were committed between 1939 and 1945. By deconstructing the information within War Without Mercy a better understanding of the way in which racist propaganda affected military strategies in America and Japan can be achieved. ...

...George C. Marshall, the United States Army Chief of Staff enlisted Hollywood filmmakers to sway popular opinion in favor of a war against Japan. The result was seven films directed by Frank Capra titled, Why We Fight. In one of the seven films, Know Your Enemy: Japan, Capra effectively constructed the notion that America was “fundamentally peaceful, democratic, and rational” while Japan was “a thoroughly militaristic, repressive, irrational nation” (Dower, 66). As a result of Capra’s propaganda Americans soldiers could kill Japanese soldiers and civilians without the guilt of moral compromise because Japanese people were no longer afforded humanity. This juxtaposition even had harmful implications in the domestic policies of the United States. U.S. civilians had no qualms about the policy of placing Japanese Americans in internment camps. These actions were not viewed as the denial of basic human rights, but it was instead viewed as a necessary measure to ensure the safety of ‘real Americans’ from the ‘monolith of evil’ that people of Japanese ancestry came to represent. Through these harmful ideologies American military strategy could exert morally reprehensible actions against Japan, such as the mass murder of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with the enthusiastic support of American civilians. ...

...As racial stereotypes focused on preserving the internal purity of the nation, the very civilians that comprised the nation sacrificed themselves rather than become victims of the American forces. Destruction of the self was inconsequential if it facilitated greater destruction of the other.

The consequences of dehumanization and the emphasis upon nationalist supremacy created a war in which killing was a moral obligation. This phenomenon is best described by Browning in his discussion about the massacre of Jewish people by Nazi forces:

What is clear is that the men’s concern for their standing in the eyes of their comrades was not matched by any sense of human ties with their victims. The Jews stood outside their circle of human obligation and responsibility. Such a polarization between “us” and “them,” between one’s comrades and the enemy, is of course standard in war (Browning).

The failure to recognize those outside of one’s own racial and national identity sits at the heart of the merciless cruelty and brutality seen during WWII. In War Without Mercy, Dower reveals the ways in which brutality became a product of government-sponsored propaganda. In both the United States and Japan, racist stereotypes and mythological constructs of supremacy enforced by propaganda infiltrated military and civilian populations. At home and abroad for both nations, the consequences were devastating. In the United States, the public took no issue with the forced imprisonment of thousands of Japanese-Americans. Outside of the United States, Americans enthusiastically supported the slaughter and defilement of Japanese civilians and military personnel. The twisted consequences of this savage brutality included the bombing of innocents, the dismemberment of corpses, and the collection of body parts from dead Japanese soldiers. ...

We know much of American society is there already, 'exceptionally' so, since the horrendously successful, illicitly human-rights-deleting 9/11 psy-ops that started off this final phase. And it ain't their fault - they're unwitting, mind-twisted victims of legions of experts 'normalizing' their own murderously suicidal psychopathy among the Disposables currently still useful in this area.

Nor was this the fault of the Japanese or German people.

We must always try to be aware of what subversive influences are trying to do to us, to our societies and our world, because we cannot hope to survive the effects of this brainwashing into support of universally applied pathology, any more than can the concepts of democracy, justice and civilization. Nor could we want to.

#2.3
the Japanese didn't make a film of the Rape of Nanking and the evacuation of Manilla for ballance. In Nanking in addition to the murder of between 200,000 and 300,000 unarmed people, Japanese soldiers systematically gang raped 20,000 women and girls. Typically they were murdered after the rapes, often by thrusting bamboo staves through their vaginas into their intestines. It wasn't a quick death.

During the evacuation of Manilla in face of advancing American troops, in addition to murdering thousands of men and raping and murdering thousands of women, Japanese troops added the practice of scooping the eyeballs out of babies and smearing them on walls and buildings.

And the current leader of Japan is on record as insisting that Korean teenagers who were forced to become "comfort women" servicing the sexual needs of Japanese troops eagerly volunteered because of the higher rations they would receive.

Selectively picking out the most violent activities of US forces devoid of context is neither history nor honest.

up

4 users have voted.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Is it possible there is a whole generation that doesn't know what nuclear weapons actually do? Ducking and covering under one's desk is not going to protect one. Is it possible there is a significant population in the United States that just doesn't have any knowledge of what they're rattling about?

I think this is exactly what has happened. I went to school in the 80s and I distinctly remember a difference in many things before and after TPTB declared the first Cold War over. Granted, there was still a lot of anti-communist propaganda being taught, but we also learned about fallout and acid rain and that there really were no winners in a nuclear war. Then Reagan tore down the wall *eye roll* and all that stuff kinda went away.

In the last ten years, I did IT work for a high school and while I wasn't in the classroom usually, it didn't seem like nuclear war was discussed outside of the discussion of WWII. Even then, it seemed to be a more abstract thing, whereas I remember being taught in a "this could happen to you!" manner. While the education of my youth probably went a little far in the "Russia is trying to destroy our way of life" direction (sound familiar???), we at least knew enough to recognize when commentators discussed using some kind of limited nukes in Gulf War I that it was madness.

this isn't sarcasm or part of a Monty Python screenplay.

Is it possible there is a whole generation that doesn't know what nuclear weapons actually do? Ducking and covering under one's desk is not going to protect one. Is it possible there is a significant population in the United States that just doesn't have any knowledge of what they're rattling about?

Maybe it's time to have real information made available to the part of our population that doesn't know what they're talking about.

I mean, this is what is so horrifying about the sudden blaming of Trump for this saber-rattling. I am completely OK with getting together with liberals who now have concern about Trump lashing out about whose bomb is bigger or whose button is bigger or whatever. But why were they so passive when Hillary Clinton rattled at Russia over Syria? Somehow that was macho and intelligent, whereas Trump is dangerous and stupid.

I can only guess it means that for so many Americans, war is far, far away and always defined by photos of homeless refugees having nothing to do with us. Do they even get what hydrogen bombs are? Are they ignorant of Russia's ability to bring war to us?

And if they don't care about the refugees we've bombed into the unspeakable suffering we've caused in Syria, how did they come to not caring? Did they learn to stop caring, or did they never learn to care in the first place? Who are these people?

Is it possible there is a whole generation that doesn't know what nuclear weapons actually do? Ducking and covering under one's desk is not going to protect one. Is it possible there is a significant population in the United States that just doesn't have any knowledge of what they're rattling about?

I think this is exactly what has happened. I went to school in the 80s and I distinctly remember a difference in many things before and after TPTB declared the first Cold War over. Granted, there was still a lot of anti-communist propaganda being taught, but we also learned about fallout and acid rain and that there really were no winners in a nuclear war. Then Reagan tore down the wall *eye roll* and all that stuff kinda went away.

In the last ten years, I did IT work for a high school and while I wasn't in the classroom usually, it didn't seem like nuclear war was discussed outside of the discussion of WWII. Even then, it seemed to be a more abstract thing, whereas I remember being taught in a "this could happen to you!" manner. While the education of my youth probably went a little far in the "Russia is trying to destroy our way of life" direction (sound familiar???), we at least knew enough to recognize when commentators discussed using some kind of limited nukes in Gulf War I that it was madness.

US officials tell CNN that US troops continue overt patrols near Manbij, Syria. Officials say Turkish-backed rebels in the area regularly fire on these patrols & US forces occasionally return fire. One official said US troops in the Manbij area came under fire “in the last week" https://t.co/F1dQI4EfQS

Will we ever see we are the evil empire? If we do, will we be able to overcome our militarized police to change our system? Or may be I've missed the point....we're solving global warming with a good dose of nuclear winter?

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7 users have voted.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

...Will we ever see we are the evil empire? If we do, will we be able to overcome our militarized police to change our system? Or may be I've missed the point....we're solving global warming with a good dose of nuclear winter?

Sometimes you have to destroy a planet to save profiteering... oh, wait...

Will we ever see we are the evil empire? If we do, will we be able to overcome our militarized police to change our system? Or may be I've missed the point....we're solving global warming with a good dose of nuclear winter?

up

2 users have voted.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

"Congress must immediately reach a bipartisan budget agreement to provide the funding necessary to implement this strategy," McCain said in a statement. "Reversing the readiness and modernization crises will require significant investment, and we must start now."

"If Congress does not come together to find a way to fund this strategy, Secretary Mattis must explicitly inform Congress and the American people of the consequences of that failure," Thornberry warned in a separate statement.

I didn't see any numbers for this immediate crisis. I guess economic growth from dynamic scoring of the GOP/Trump tax cuts will pay for it. Or maybe Medicare, Social Security and Welfare cuts? Decisions, decisions.

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6 users have voted.

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

a normal part of military defense strategy, "global power competition". It's time for the people of the world to tell these bastards, in Russia and China too, to take their global power competition and shove it up their asses.
Seriously.
Anyone voting for these two political parties are aiding and abetting all of this.

Russia has achieved its goal of economic recovery and inflation reduced to a record small number. She did this with self reliance in many economic sectors and by establishing trade relations with reliable partners. Russia will not go back to being dependent on the West. Economic sanctions are an act of war - an opponent is deliberately trying to make your economy fail. I think that the biggest reason that Russia did not hack the US election is that they just don't care, the exact opposite US policy to hack every election everywhere. Yes they expressed the desire to have a US President who would like to get along with Russia, but even that would make little difference in US-Russia relations as they very well know. The US and her press and her people, especially mainstream Democrats, take themselves and their micky-mouse democracy way too seriously. Russia has a devastating nuclear arsenal to offset the US. This necessity should be really obvious, and this new nuclear strategy is just proving the obvious.

I think that Trump and the Generals have come to the point where they fear that the game has turned permanently. When you do not have a winning hand anymore you can always bluff. In this case Trump is throwing a temper tantrum to replace a missing real functional advantage, with the DPRK, Russia, and China. Saying that you are powerful with your nuclear weapons and then demanding that some other country conform to your wishes is a desperate act, as you hand is unusable. North Korea understands this perfectly and neuters the US. This is a major game change from the post WWII and especially the post Soviet era.

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7 users have voted.

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Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.